Zombie apocalypse fiction – Ruth’s story #52 Settling in for the night, dealing with Mephitis mephitis, SHTF & TEOTWAKI

Shack makes like he is going to follow Sam. I put my hand on his chest, “Hold on there Skippy, not a good idea to go running into a gun fight. We have a bunch of people running around with weapons. Wait a moment and let us see if they need our help.”

As Shack is looking at me, thinking about what I said, three more rifle shots ring out in quick succession. The shots were single and not a M16 on tri-burst, so I wonder who is shooting at what?

After the shooting there is much shouting, most of which I cannot decipher. I see Sam and Jamal walking around doing the assurance dance. It seems like everything is under control.

As Sam heads our way I pat Shack in a friendly manner. “See we did not need to run over there after all.”

Shack gives me the typical male non-committal grunt and plops down beside our car. Like it or not I am stuck with Shack for the moment, might as well make the best of it.

Shack pulls an Otis rifle cleaning system out of his ruck in the car and breaks his M4 in half. He methodically begins to clean his M4 which is a good idea I decide. Watching Shack run the cable cleaning rod with a solvent-soaked patch through his barrel, I realize that my rifle could use a good swabbing too.

This is the first time that I have got a good look at Shack’s M4. I see that the ACOG mounted to it is one of the newer models in 4×32 with amber cross hairs. I did not see if before, do not know how I missed it, but Shack’s ACOG has a Trijicon RMR reflex red dot sight hard mounted to the rear and on top of the ACOG. Having two sights in such a compact package is a nice set up.

Shack and I have our respective rifles field stripped and are in the process of giving them a decent cleaning when Sam finally walks up after making the rounds to the front of the convoy.

“Fucking skunks,” Sam says with a chuckle. “All that shooting was over a damn skunk. Be glad you are not riding in the second HEMTT, because a couple of those guys are going to stink to high heaven for a while.”

As Sam walks away still chuckling, the unmistakable odor of skunk reaches our noses. Shack and I shrug our shoulders and finish cleaning our rifles. After rifle reassembly and function tests we load our rifles. Shack clips his rifle back onto his harness while I lay mine down beside my bed roll.

I strip off my jacket and my long sleeve shirt laying them beside my bedroll. I decide a last cigarette sounds good before attempting to sleep. Tucking my smokes and my Zippo back in my shirt pocket I press the bonnet button on the key fob hanging in the ignition, opening the front trunk of the little car.

Shack pulls out a small O.D. green three-legged stool to sit on and watches me while I smoke and root around in the front trunk of the little Smart car. Pushing aside the anti-tank rockets and missile, I pull the military ruck from the driver’s side to me.

Loosening the draw string on top of the ruck I see it is one of the older large (vice the medium-sized) ALICE packs not the newer large MOLLE pack that I remember pulling off the Humvee outside SeaTac airport. What the fuck! I should have caught the color difference as the ALICE packs are O.D. green and the MOLLE packs were Army ACU.

I find a piece of pale green lined note paper in the top of the pack. Written in pencil the note says, “Ruth, we traded your two MOLLE packs for two older ALICE packs without frames. All the contents from the MOLLE packs are here, we just traded packs. If you want a MOLLE pack we can get you one later. We did trade items for stuff that would fit you. V/R, Sam.”

Well, shit! The damn gear fairy decided to upgrade someone’s pack and down graded mine. I am a little pissed about it, but nothing I can do now. There are other things to argue over other than packs. At least they left me the contents. I knew I should have looked carefully at the rucks when they were moved but I was distracted by the rockets and missile.

I see the note paper is taped with clear tape to an older claymore mine stored on top of the pack. Lot date of the claymore is 1968, shit it is old. I do not see the clacker or the arming cap for the claymore so I hope they are in the pack somewhere else.

Underneath the claymore is the standard nylon O.D. green M16 cleaning kit. Underneath the flap of the ALICE pack (which is empty), I find three sealed brown MRE bags. Under the MREs is a pair of woodland green woman’s trousers with a matching pair of blouses under the trousers. A pair of standard, small O.D. green BDU belts is coiled underneath the pants with two flat black belt buckles. Four pair of men’s small solid brown tee shirts is under the blouses. A pair of woman’s size 5 tan desert combat boots is in the bottom of the pack.

The left side of the large ALICE pack (with it facing me) has the older model one-quart canteen with aluminum cup and stove shoved in the bottom of the woodland green cover. One lower outer pocket contains an older woodland camouflage poncho and liner, the pocket next to it contains a wet weather blouse. The last outer bottom pocket contains a pair of small leather work gloves, a 500’ roll of black  550 paracord, eight snap links, and 15’ of sling rope.

The rights side of the pack has the old O.D. green plastic case holding an older but serviceable entrenching tool. The smaller middle pockets hold two green chem lights and three pairs of solid green men’s small wool blend boot socks.

A quick search of the other large ALICE pack reveals it to be similarly outfitted but instead of a claymore mine, it has a claymore clacker and two caps. The second pack too had the same note taped to the claymore clacker as the first pack I opened.

I am not happy about losing the MOLLE packs but if I was in the field I would much rather carry a MOLLE pack than an ALICE pack. I shrug my shoulders and put everything back in the bonnet.

As I close the bonnet I see that Shack is dozing in his little chair leaning on his M4. As I am considering whether to wake Shack up or let him doze a few more minutes, another shot rings out in the warehouse.

This time the shot sounded like a pistol with much less muzzle flash. Shit more skunks?